Nanotechnology News – Latest Headlines

Breaking cell barriers with retractable protein nanoneedles

Adapting a bacterial structure, researchers develop protein actuators that can mechanically puncture cells.

Feb 11th, 2016

Growing nanowire lasers right on a silicon chip

Thanks to an ingenious process, researchers grow nanowire lasers right on a silicon chip, making it possible to produce high-performance photonic components cost-effectively.

Feb 11th, 2016

Making molecules that twinkle

Single step process transforms carbon dioxide into star-shaped molecules that are promising building blocks for useful polymeric materials.

Feb 11th, 2016

Members of a research collaboration have succeeded in experimentally verifying the properties of crystals of chiral magnetic materials, which may lead to the development of new types of magnetic memories with unprecedented storage capacities.

Feb 10th, 2016

Spin waves out of waste heat

Principles of the conversion from heat currents to magnonic spin currents discovered / Study of complex magnetic materials.

Feb 10th, 2016

Flow phenomena on solid surfaces: key role played by boundary layer velocity

Physicists have shown how liquids on solid surfaces can be made to slide over the surface a bit like a bobsleigh on ice. The key is to apply a coating at the boundary between the liquid and the surface that induces the liquid to slip.

Feb 10th, 2016

Chemical nano-cages advance synthetic biology

In a new study, researchers present a clever means of localizing and confining enzymes and the substrate molecules they bind with, speeding up reactions essential for life processes.

Feb 10th, 2016

New thin-film transistor may lead to flexible devices

Researchers improved performance of TFTs by designing a new transistor architecture that takes advantage of a bipolar action.

Feb 9th, 2016

Absorbing acoustics with a super-thin acoustic metasurface

Researchers have recently developed a design for a coiled-up acoustic metasurface which can achieve total acoustic absorption in very low-frequency ranges.

Feb 9th, 2016

Light-induced superconductivity in fullerenes

Indications of light-induced lossless electricity transmission in fullerenes contribute to the search for superconducting materials for practical applications.

Feb 9th, 2016

Tiny diatoms boast enormous strength

Scientists have recently found that the hard shells of diatoms have the highest specific strength - the strength at which a structure breaks with respect to its density - of any known biological material, including bone, antlers, and teeth.

Feb 9th, 2016

Twisted X-rays unravel the complexity of helical structures

Researchers show that the key to obtaining diffraction data from non-crystalline but symmetric structures, such as helices, lies in matching the symmetry of the incoming radiation to the symmetry of the structure to be studied.

Feb 9th, 2016

Structure of 'smart' nanogels at air/water interface revealed

Scientists used NIPAM-based nanogels synthesised with different percentages of MBA (N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide) as a cross-linker in the range 10-30%, and characterised them at human physiological temperature. Detailed structural studies of these systems on a molecular length scale have not been attempted before now.